No one was sitting the Mott Street side of the building. No one saw Sarah Welles ringing the bell set in the jamb beside the blue door at six thirty that Wednesday night. No one saw her checking the street furtively and nervously as she waited for Andrew to let her in. Certainly no one saw her throwing herself into his arms and kissing him wildly the moment the door was closed and locked behind them.
This was the part he hated.
When they wanted to talk later. He sometimes felt they went to bed with you only so they’d be able to get into these long conversations afterward. That was the price they paid for being allowed to talk. She was no different from any of the others. A crazy woman while you were fucking her, and then all she wanted to do was talk. Full of questions. Only the second time they’d been to bed together, she wanted to know all about him. Wanted to own him was what it really got down to.
“Is this where you work?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“It seems more like an apartment.”
“No, there’s a nice little office on the first floor.”
“All I saw was a living room.”
“There’s an office behind it. And a conference room, too.”
“Do you work here alone?”
“Most of the time.”
“No secretary?”
“No. I don’t need one. Most of my business is on the phone.”
“Don’t you write any letters?”
“Occasionally. I get help in sometimes. But rarely.”
“Do you like working alone?”
“Yes.”
“Are you here all day?”
“Usually.”
“I had trouble getting through to you this morning.”
“Yeah, it was a pretty busy morning.”
Six hysterical phone calls from Frankie Palumbo, one after another. Frankie was worried that whacking that stupid fuck Di Nobili like Andrew had told him might cause the Colotti family to come back at him. Andrew had told him not to sweat it. The Colottis had only been doing a favor for Di Nobili and they were probably glad to have him off their backs. That was the first call. The second one, and the next three after that, were all about Jimmy Angels being a capo and this broad being his cousin, so how was Angels gonna feel now that his cousin’s dumb boyfriend ended up in a fuckin’ trunk at La Guardia? Andrew kept telling Frankie that this was a favor the Colottis hadn’t even wanted to do, and they’d been very upset when this thief stole money from the Faviola family, so don’t worry about it, okay? The last call was Frankie asking if he thought maybe they should whack the broad, too, before she went yelling and screaming to her cousin again? Andrew said he didn’t think that was such a good idea.
“Who’s Carter-Goldsmith?” Sarah asked.
“Men who own the business,” Andrew said. “They’re partially retired now. I sort of run things for them.”
This was a lie.
Two lies.
Three, in fact.
Nobody owned the business but Andrew, who not only “sort of” ran things but controlled them completely now that his father was no longer on the scene. Nor were “Carter” and “Goldsmith” partially retired, either. They were both very active capos in the Faviola family. Carter was Ralph Carbonaio, also known as Ralphie Carter and Ralphie the Red. Goldsmith was Carmine Orafo; the Goldsmith was a direct translation of his family name into English. Both men were listed respectively as president and secretary-treasurer of a perfectly legal investment corporation which — as Andrew had correctly informed Sarah — looked for businesses that needed an investment of time and money, and nurtured them along till they brought a good return.
These legitimate business interests, owned and operated by the Faviola family, included such diverse operations as restaurants (a favorite lawful enterprise), bars and taverns (another favorite), food distribution, real estate, garment manufacturing, photo-finishing, coffee bars (six in Seattle alone), travel agencies, motel chains, vending machines, garbage disposal, linen supply, and a score of retail shops that sold a wide variety of items including sporting goods, shoes, books and records, ladies’ wear, and home appliances.
All of these legal businesses generated justifiable income, and these receipts were deposited in bank accounts all over the United States. Often, as was the case with several of the retail shops, there were branches in various states, and paper transfers of money were made on the books for goods shipped from one shop to another. It was next to impossible to monitor such legal business transactions. It was equally impossible to link any illicit activity to the recurring operating expenses paid by check from the various bank accounts of these businesses. A great many of the checks paid for salaries or services, however, went to criminals exchanging ill-gotten cash for discounted but laundered money.
Money as such is anonymous, which is why cash was the medium of exchange in most criminal transactions. But cash illegally gained was something of a curse, nice to have but essentially useless until it was converted into cash that seemed respectably earned. Money laundering was a crime that existed merely to make the fruits of other crimes usable. By funneling the proceeds of criminal activity through any number of legitimate businesses, cash obtained illicitly was magically transformed to cash that seemed earned through honest labor. Becoming unwanted partners in businesses that needed “an investment of time and money” — as Andrew had put it — often involved threatened or actual violence, yet another crime. But crime was the primary business of the Faviola family.
Andrew’s father had been sent away forever on four murder counts, but it was open knowledge that the family was involved as well in narcotics and gambling and loan-sharking and money laundering and labor racketeering and possessing stolen goods and extortion and prostitution. Carter-Goldsmith had been created to generate a sheen of respectability for these covert criminal activities. Although Carbonaio and Orafo both lived in the Northeast — Carbonaio on Staten Island, Orafo in New Jersey — their legitimate business activities took them all over the United States, and they were gone more often than they were home. In the days when Anthony Faviola was in charge, they reported directly to him. Now they reported directly to Andrew.
And now Sarah Welles, lying cradled and naked in Andrew’s arms as he began feeling the first faint stirrings of another erection, was asking him things like how many hours did he work every day, and didn’t it get lonely working here all by himself...
“Well, I get reports from the field,” he said. “People coming in all the time.”
... and shouldn’t an investment company have an office in the financial...
“Where are you supposed to be tonight?” he asked.
Bringing the conversation back to practical matters. If they were going to keep doing this — and that was certainly his intention — he didn’t want her to get caught. All he needed was a dumb husband discovering...
“I’m at a teachers’ meeting,” she said.
“Where?”
“We’re supposed to be having dinner together. Six of us. English teachers.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t...”
“Think of a place before you go home. Think of it now, in fact.”
“Well...”
He waited.
“Bice,” she said.
“Where?”
“On Fifty-Fourth off Fifth.”
“Near the school,” he said, and nodded in approval. He opened the nightstand drawer on his side of the bed, pulled out the Manhattan telephone directory, found the listing for Bice, and punched in the number.